While a rover was no speeder, I still had every reason to drive. In the commotion of everyone scrambling to rest in the rover, Roys didn’t have the opportunity to choose a seat in the back cabin like he had done previously. The one remaining was in my cabin at the front.

I slapped the passenger seat. “Don’t worry, Captain. I won’t bite.”

Roys waited outside the door, considering squeezing into the back. The rovers were meant more for the survey team. We used them for our initial sweep, but afterward, the back acted as a small cargo space and transport for the survey team to and from the habitat. That meant there wasn’t much space in the compartment and we hardly fit the full team in there already.

Roys, keeping his eyes on everything save me, made an annoyed grunting noise and got in. The door slammed shut. He rolled his eyes when I said, “Seatbelt.”

“Shouldn’t you follow your own rule?”

“Caring for me again?” I tapped the button on the dash. The belt fell over me and locked tight. “You really are a sweetheart.”

Roys sat perfectly still arms crossed, which I would argue was an awful idea. That made me want to stare at his biceps that long sleeved shirt struggled to maintain. In the cabin, he let the exoskin hang around his waist. The rover had better AC.

“Drive,” Roys said, not facing me even with my obvious gawking while his seatbelt came on.

The rover groaned onward. The damn things wouldn’t go over 30 specs on a good day. Better than walking but made me miss the speeder. Being on The Planet brought a joy I couldn’t explain, but flying a speeder had its own special place in my heart, too.

“Will you regale me with your heroic tales or is that for team chats only?” I asked, not surprised to receive a grunt in response. “Don’t make this an exceptionally long drive by acting fucking weird.”

“Weird,” he repeated.

“I sucked you off. You liked it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Let’s pretend it never happened,” he said, one finger tapping his perfectly sculpted arm.

I clicked my tongue. “Nah.”

“Ethin.”

“Why the fuck do you insist on calling me that? Lucky. It’s easy. Say it with me.” I snapped my fingers at him. “Luh-key.”

He didn’t say it, sitting there, eyes ahead. That was fine. I didn’t mind a challenge.

“Are you actually the jealous type? Giving me the silent treatment because Zavir’s fucking me tonight. That’s not very gentleman-like,” I said, smirking when I caught that twitch in his eye.

“What would I have to be jealous of?” His commlink blinked. He received a message.

“That he’ll get a taste instead of you.”

Roys tossed the holo screen on his side of the window. The other troop finished up, as predicted, meaning we could finish tomorrow and get that relaxation time he mentioned a while back.

“Surely your lot can deal with the last run tomorrow,” he said, moving around names on the commlink, and completely setting aside our previous conversation. He was really annoying when he wanted to be, not reacting in the least. 

“Aren’t you getting tired of avoiding me?” I asked.

“Who said I’m avoiding you?”

“I don’t know, maybe all the times you’ve practically bolted at the sight of me.”

He scoffed. “You aren’t that special.”

“Your cock would beg to differ.”

“I should have learned not to listen to that appendage at all by now,” he replied far too nonchalantly while reading his holo screen and nodding, having come to a decision. “We’ll set out at the usual time. Iylene will handle your team. I expect you to finish the sweep tomorrow. If not, you can have another duty of scrubbing the toilets, maybe all the dishes, too.”

I ran my tongue over my teeth. “I hope you get eaten by flora.”

Roys smiled in a crooked stupid way. “The survey team said they’re coming down a day early thanks to our efficient work. They’ll be here in three days. Behave around them. They report to people far higher than corporate and you won’t like what may happen if you cause the wrong kind of trouble.”

“I have a sneaking fucking suspicion you’re warning me in hopes that I’ll do the opposite out of spite and you’ll finally have me out of your hair.”

“Guilty.” He let his head fall to the side, putting those dark eyes on me. “You are shit at following orders, after all.”

I swerved the rover causing Roys’ shoulder to slam into the door. He glared. I glared.

“You are unbearably childish,” he said.

“You are unbearably annoying,” I replied.

“I genuinely dislike you.”

“I fucking hate you.”

“Just drive.” He set his head on the window.

We stayed silent and I swerved the rover any time the bastard tried closing his eyes. From the back cabin, Lilea shrieked because Arana threw up and missed the bag. Roys and I didn’t talk the rest of the way nor when he found me during dinner to drop the cleaning supplies at my feet.

“What did you do to piss him off this time?” Ryker asked between a mouth full of food.

“Told him he had a nice ass.” I tugged out a cigarette. Ryker held out his hand in request of a hit that I shared before he returned it to me.

“Why must you constantly attract his attention?” Zavir shoved a spoonful of questionable food in his mouth. Frowning, he tugged a bag from his hip that he carried during all meals and sprinkled spices over all our food. He pointed a spoon at me. “You’re lucky, but that’s only because you are unlucky.”

Iylene leaned over me. “That lacks sense.”

“Bad things happen that you always avoid, but those bad things end up happening to us, like annoying the captain. One of these days he’ll punish all of us because of you.” Zavir slapped his chest. “I am going to request to move teams.”

“Don’t be like that.” I hugged one of Zavir’s arms and nuzzled my nose against his neck the way he liked it. He shivered when I nibbled on his neck. “You’d miss me and you know it.”

“It isn’t about missing you. It’s about avoiding the trouble you bring. If I had any control over these sticky hands of mine, I wouldn’t be here.” He retrieved a small glass vial from his pocket to sit on the table.

“Fuck off, where did you get that?” Ryker grabbed the vial, half to hide it and half to inspect it.

“Had it since before we got on Main. At the transport, some idiot was selling it. Wasn’t watching me in the least. I grabbed it.” Zavir ate more, so nonchalant about getting those sticky hands on a vial of drought, a party synthetic.

“There’s enough for probably two drops each.” Zavir gave me a curious look. “Thought we could use one tonight.”

I slapped his back. “Count me in.”

“The rest of us should determine a time and location prior to consumption to ensure we are neither caught nor interrupted,” Iylene offered. “I, for one, do not want any uninvited guests.”

“We’ll figure it out in time.” Zavir snatched the vial from Ryker to stash in his pocket. “Keep it to yourselves otherwise we’ll be lucky to get one drop, and I ain’t interested in getting jumped.”

Arana swirled her spoon in his general direction. “Surely you can fight them off with all those extra limbs.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to go through the trouble.”

There would be trouble if the survey team found out, probably. The rest of the troop would sooner suck up to Zavir for a drop. They’d be upset if he said no, but there was enough other shit to go around.

Speaking of shit, after I finished eating, I got up to attend to the restrooms. The troop laughed while I trudged off, swinging the bucket so it’d hit the walls as I went. The droids were ordered to leave the toilets be and some bastards did a real number on them. Not only did I scrub but I had to take the shit outside for compost. There was a machine for that, but Roys turned it off, forcing me to deal with all the literal shit.

By the time I finished, most of the night had been wasted, though that had been a blessing in disguise. Zavir sent a message explaining that Ryker and Arana agreed to sleep in the communal area for a while so we could have our fun, so I went to the barracks after my shower. Zavir had the drought out. One drop and it sent us spiraling. Everything heightened, sounds, smells, touching, it muddled the mind, made it soft as putty, so easily malleable.

Drought was often taken for exactly what Zavir and I were up to. It heightened the sex, made it feel like you were connected body and soul. Could drag out the play for hours and hours until you thought your body would break. Wasn’t a drug to take if you weren’t aware of what you were about to get into. The trip could be bad otherwise. I learned that the hard way.

I took drought back at the Colony on the occasions when sex would be the best way to get what we needed. It was better to be too out of it to remember half the shit I did to rid myself of hunger and thirst and the cold. One drop made everything better, made me think for a long, blissful moment that life could get better.

That’s how my boss got people on that shit. I understood it, seeing as I was the one delivering synthetics, or something akin to it. He rewarded his lot with more than credits, a piece of the hit, nothing too much because he wouldn’t waste the potential revenue, but enough to have his people crawling back.

He knew most of us needed a hit to get by. While I never took the hard shit, always dragged myself away when I could afford to, or got myself hit over the head for daring to suggest it, that didn’t mean I didn’t give in from time to time when I shouldn’t have.

Broken, broken things…

By the time the drought wore off, Zavir was passed out in bed, two of his arms thrown over my waist. We weren’t on the bunk. Two mattresses had been dragged onto the floor where we were. The desk was upside down and two belts hung off the top rung of each bunk. My body ached in all the right ways and my sight was a little blurry.

Arana and Ryker returned. When? Hadn’t the foggiest, but they slept on the top bunks. Rolling off the mattress, I crawled around in search of my underwear. I needed to take a piss, but Zavir had ripped my boxers in half, asshole.

Pants on, I stumbled out of the room, half in a daze. My commlink said it was nearing 0300, so there shouldn’t have been anyone up. Thinking the guy who was up at that hour. However, at the end of the hall, a pale blue light emitted from beneath Roys’ door.

“Holo screen,” I grumbled, keeping a hand on the wall to steady my walking.

The captain was probably up doing paperwork or some other boring shit, but my rattled mind led me to the door anyway. There were voices. Plural.

I pressed my ear against the door. One voice was too low to fully make out, just a jumble of words my fuzzy brain couldn’t comprehend. Then Roys talked and I couldn’t comprehend that either because he was using earth speak.

I stood there a while, my mind unfolding as the drought wore off. I never met anyone from earth. Didn’t think anyone really left. But there Roys was, fully using earth speech. That wasn’t a damn translator.

He was the furthest away from home than any of us.